The Ex Hex (Ex Hex #1)(63)

“Da,” Rhys started, but Vivienne was already rising to her feet.

“We do sell an awful lot of crystals and novelty T-shirts,” she said, her own hands braced on the table. “We also sell fake grimoires and plastic pumpkins and pointy hats. The whole shebang, really.”

The lines around Simon’s mouth deepened, but he didn’t say anything, not even when Vivienne smiled and said, “And yet we’re still the witches who managed to curse your son, and you had no idea it had even happened. So maybe back off a little.”

She kept smiling, her eyes hard, her cheeks a little flushed, and truly, how could any man not be wildly in love with her?

Vivienne glanced over at him, and since Rhys was fairly certain he had cartoon hearts literally pouring out of his eyes, he stood up, nodding at his father.

“I’ll see you on your way, shall I?”

Simon was still looking at Vivienne, but after a moment, he nodded, heading for the door. Walking his father out, Rhys paused at the top of the porch steps. “Sorry for the wasted trip.”

Simon turned and looked at him, and Rhys saw the lines around his mouth, carved deep, the hollows beneath his cheekbones. “Rhys,” Simon said, and then he shook his head, the Traveling Stone already in his hand. “Take care of yourself.”

“I always have,” he replied, but the words were barely out of his mouth before his father was gone, blinking out like a light, leaving Rhys alone on the porch.

“Want me to follow you home?”

Ah. Not alone.

Vivienne stood in the doorway, still in her witch’s dress, the hat long since discarded, and Rhys nodded. “I’d like that, yeah.”

It took them only about three minutes to make the drive from her aunt’s house to his, and Rhys told himself he should be nothing but relieved that his father had come and gone so quickly. That he wasn’t staying here in the house tonight.

He dropped his keys on the table by the door, Vivienne just behind him.

“Thank you,” he said, turning to look at her. “Both for seeing me home like a lady, and also for putting up with my father.”

“He really wasn’t so bad,” she said with a shrug. “Way less scary than I’d thought he’d be.”

“Vivienne, you gorgeous girl, you are a woman of many talents, but lying is not one of them.”

She smiled a little at that, and then crossed the room to stand in front of him. “Do you want me to go?” she asked, reaching up to brush his hair back from his face. “Get some time to yourself?”

“Stay,” he said, taking her hand and kissing her palm, then her wrist. And then he was kissing her mouth, suddenly, desperately needing her, wanting her, and her hands were already at the button on his jeans.

“Stay,” Rhys murmured again, and he knew he didn’t just mean tonight, but rather than say that, he pulled her down onto the sofa with him.



“You know, the one place where this decorating scheme really works is in here,” Vivi said, leaning back against Rhys’s chest in the giant claw-foot tub that dominated the master bathroom. Like the rest of the house, it was done in shades of black and deep burgundy, but Rhys had to agree with her: in here, the mood was definitely more romantic than terrifying. Of course, that might have been all the candles they’d lit and the fact that he currently had Vivi, naked and wet, pressed up against him, but in any case, Rhys was suddenly very fond of this spot in the house.

“Thank you,” he murmured against her temple, kissing the damp hair there, and she tilted her head back to look at him.

“For complimenting your bathroom?”

“For all of it. For holding your own against my father.”

“He loves you,” she said softly, reaching down to tangle her fingers with his under the water. “Yes, he’s overbearing and kind of a lot, but he’s scared. Worried. And you can’t blame him for that.”

Rhys didn’t want to think about his father right now, and he didn’t want to explain to Vivienne that family didn’t necessarily mean people who cared about you. She had Elaine and Gwyn, she had warmth and love and home and all the things Rhys had always hoped Simon might be, but never had been.

She was lucky.

And he was lucky to have her, even if it wasn’t for much longer.





Chapter 28




Vivi woke up the next morning and had the brief, disorienting sensation of not knowing where she was.

Rolling over, she pushed her hair out of her face and took in the heavy velvet drapes and flocked wallpaper.

Rhys’s house.

Rhys’s father’s house.

Rhys’s father.

Sighing, Vivi flopped onto her back as last night came rushing back. Simon hadn’t been wrong about them ignoring the curse, or at least not paying it as much attention as they should have. They’d cursed her entire town, and what had they spent the last week doing?

She glanced at Rhys’s side of the bed, already empty, and her body went warm with the memories of this past week. It felt silly to call it magic, but it had been. Just spending time with Rhys again, showing him around Graves Glen, having dinner with him in her apartment, or here in this bizarre mausoleum of a house that had, somehow, started to feel a little homier.

She even kind of liked the canopy if she was honest.